Why US Beef is doomed in Korea

Because this is happening all over Korea right now:


It basically says, "We do not use any imported beef here."


So, being the obtusely inquisitive person that I am, I asked the director of the Pre-school, "Why did you put this sign up?"


"Because mother's are concerned about Mad Cow disease in imported beef."


"Duh," I thought rather than said and assured her that there is no logical reason to believe there is any problem with US Beef and I was unhappy with the choice to put up this sign.


This is in a pre-school that is part of a Early Childhood Education Department in an institution of higher learning! Basically, against all reason they are kowtowing to the wishes of a few mothers who are reacting to the media and lobbyist scaremongering telling them that US Beef is somehow dangerous. Instead of reducing the costs of providing meals for the children so that they can provide more educational value, they are paying (or in this case plan to continue paying) the exorbitant price of Korean beef (we can assume they are also not using Australian beef since the sign indicates 'imported' beef and not US beef by name) not to mention perpetuating the myth that US beef is somehow more dangerous than Korean beef. As Metropolitician points out a likely fact, more people have died of e-coli and such in Korean beef than of Mad Cow disease in the US. Someone with better Korean skills than I should call the KFDA and get those numbers and put them somewhere for all to see (anyone wanna race?).

Of course, it probably won't matter because, again as Metropolitician suggests (and something we all suspect), most Koreans view death or injury caused by foreigners as somehow more unacceptable than those caused by Koreans (for example, where traffic accidents are concerned) so the fact that Korean beef kills people wouldn't make the average Korean bat an eye but if (God forbid), a single person should ever die at the hands of US Beef whether from Mad Cow, E-coli, or just choking on one of those short ribs set to be imported, the media would go into a feeding frenzy and downtown Seoul would light up like World Cup 2002 all over again with protesters and candlelight vigils resulting in the banning of US Beef from Korean stores for the rest of time thus insuring the longevity of Hanwoo monopoly.


US Beef is doomed because the deck is stacked against it. The local Media, Lobbyists and Farmers, Politicians, Housewives and now even your local pre-school and restaurants are, against all possible logic, taking a stand against it. It has been made into a "national safety" and "Korean Pride" issue and those who would buy US Beef will be made to feel that they are somehow endangering those to whom they serve the beef.


I said it before and I will say it again that I would not be a bit surprised, after US Beef imports start, if some of the crackpots who oppose US Beef imports would actually somehow try to infect someone eating US Beef with Mad Cow disease or E-coli in order to perpetuate the myth and get rid of US Beef. After all, large amounts of money and national 'pride' are involved


What I really need is a 500 word essay in Korean about why it is illogical to hate Korean beef. This essay should supported by facts from reliable references from both Korea and abroad. I want to be able to just smile and hand it to any person (including my wife's family) who believes that US Beef is somehow inherently dangerous and should not be imported.

Jumping on the "fly in my ____" bandwagon

Occasionally, I like to keep up with the Jones', Kim's and Park's so I thought I'd share my experience with a particular baby food company. The following picture is from a package of a popular Korean brand of baby gruel. The quality is not the best but it is pretty obvious to any observer that at least one of the little brownish spots has legs. My wife really wanted to just let it go originally but then I thought, what if this is a regular thing. I certainly didn't want my 1 year old eating 6-legged creatures and I'm sure others didn't either.

In retrospect, I probably should have made a bigger deal of it but all I did was contact the company. They sent out a representative who came over and looked at the offending rice and it's packaging (even took the evidence with him in a plastic bag) and offered to give us a few freebies of the company's product (by mail....as if). There were the expected, 'this is not a usual thing' and 'sorry about this' yada yada yada and an unceremonious exit. A follow-up phone call a few days later and that was the end of it. No closed down factory lines, no headlines. I was content pretty much to let it go until the recent spat of headlines about rats in snacks then flies and wood chips in the beer. Just thought I'd share.

I just have to wonder out loud though...if I was content to let well enough alone...how many other people out there have similar experiences with various food companies that have just tossed the offending food and chalked it up to O. Well and his friends G. Whiz and G. Willikers?

A WTF moment to share

I was at Costco purchacing the months supply of beef, chicken, scorched rice and a few sundry other items totalling about 120,000. I gleefully placed my items on the checkout counter and after the woman checked them out I gave her my credit card and said (in Korean),
"12 months, please."
"12 months!!!" she replied looking at me like I must have lost my mind.
"Is that strange to you?" again I repied in polite Korean.
"Yes. There will be a lot of interest." she said, still holding my card at the top of the swiper gadget and now having attracted the attention of most of the other 100 or so people in the adjacent checkout lines. As if, I didn't know this.
"That's what the customer wants, just do it." This response was NOT in the polite form. She swiped it, gave me the card and the slip with a smirk that thouroughly deserved to be smacked to the back of her head. I signed, took my card and grumbled off to take my 20 minute escalator ride to the roof parking lot.
Granted that it may not be the best decision to put groceries on 12 months payments; that was not exactly my decision either (wife's); but who was SHE to question it.

My How times have changed: Dasepo Naughty Girls

There was a VERY good read over at Gusts of Popular Feeling on a movie called Dasepo Naughty Girls (at least it was mostly about that with a tangent or two) and it just gave me some inspiration for a couple of Korea long-timer anecdotes on the subject of Sex and the Media in Korea.

First, I came to Korea in April of 1996. At that time, I recall seeing some Korean dramas and wondering why every time the lovers would come close to kissing, the scene would change or fade to a commercial. I asked my director (I was one of the few who actually made friends with my hagwon owner) and he said that it was 'against the law' in Korea to show people kissing on television. I also recall that a certain drama featuring two married people who were in an intimate relationship that involved NO PHYSICAL CONTACT yet the scandal over this drama was all over the place because the two people were in dissatisfying marriages and decided to (as my director succinctly put it) "share their minds." Needless to say, after growing up coming home to my mother watching "Days of Our Lives" or "General Hospital" I was dumbfounded at what I perceived to be a puritanical society. Of course, I was out in the country and my exposure to the sexual underbelly of Korea was limited but it was obvious that the average Cho Blow was pretty up in arms about it. Nowadays, on both the big and small screen it seems that a lot of these barriers gone well beyond destruction and can scarcely be remembered.

Second story, About 4 years ago, I was teaching a couple of middle school boys and the subject somehow wound up on a picture that one of their classmates had shown them of his sister in the shower (apparently without her knowledge either that the picture had been taken or that it had been distributed). And I recall being disturbed because a middle school student not only had a phone (which back then was not as common as it is today) but had used it for such a sinister purpose. Now, after reading the aforementioned article, that seems to pale in comparison to the way the cellphones are being used today to film things that only a few years ago would have been shocking beyond all comprehension.

Wrongly Accused Blogger: Metropolitician joins the list

First it was ZenKimchi getting accused of things he didn't do and getting dragged through the inJustice system, now the Metropolitician is dragged into the quagmire. It reads like something out of a Stephen King short story...a true nightmare. Basically, minding his own business and he gets verbally and odiferously assaulted by a drunk adjussi and then when he calls the police to get the guy to quit bothering him....HE GETS ARRESTED because the drunk off his kiester Korean guy said that the M kicked him and left a bruise. M has been printed and booked and I would assume is in need of some legal counsel (though he did not specifically appeal for it on his blog).

Now, I'm not one for sticking up for someone when I don't hear both sides of the story, so if you understand Korean, you can hear the real B.S. in a recorded conversation with the mephitic sot. There are some real dire consequences if this conviction sticks so I certainly hope he can beat this wrap totally. Unfortunately, the ill-smelling inebriate does not appear to have any money and therefore can't be sued for the likely financial damage that M will need to keep it off his record.

My advice, M...get legal counsel now! Contact anyone you might know or who might know someone who is a high ranking police officer to try and help you take care of this before it gets out of hand.

Why the Anti-Discrimination Law Must be Amended.

From the time I heard that the Korean Government was going to pass “Anti-Discrimination” Legislation I was skeptical; if not hopeful. How could a society such as this with such deep-rooted biases against even its own ever hope to pass legislation that would somehow protect those who need it most? Of course, my reasons for hoping for the passing of this bill were somewhat selfish. As a foreigner trying to raise a family in Korea I am keenly aware of the ways in which such a law could make life easier for me and mine.
But since I have been in Korea for a long time, I think I can sort of ‘step outside of myself’ a bit and challenge myself to find reasons why the government would choose to delete the 7 contentious items from the bill. It is said, to really understand someone you must walk a mile in their shoes. So, I am taking a moment to really try and understand, item by item, why it is necessary to remove these items from the Korean perspective. Prof. Gill Wonpyeong’s wise words (albeit something may have been lost in translation) have given me the necessary mindset from which to spew forth:

Family type –
Because it is important that we make sure that the people that we work for are only the most moral of people. We should not be forced to hire someone, regardless of their qualifications, if they are estranged from their spouse. It does not matter if a woman’s husband cheated on her and left her with 3 kids to feed, it must be her fault in some way and society must punish her for that by making it difficult for her to work a decent job with other decent people. This is particularly important in a society reaching a 35% divorce rate. In addition, we certainly don’t want to have to work with someone who comes from a broken family because we know that if someone comes from a family like that they must be messed up, crazy or both, regardless of their qualifications.

Nation of Origin
Businesses don’t want to pass this one possibly because they know that the ramifications would be far reaching in the area of employment. Employers would no longer be able to pay people differently based on the color of their skin….this would force many businesses to shut down because they simply could not afford to pay their workers. This can’t pass because that would mean that we would have to actually pay out a little more of our profits to those dirty-looking ASEANs. We have to keep their wages low to make sure that they will want to return to their home countries with the thanks that they were able to work in such a profitable environment. Never mind that they lost their right hand due to lack of a safe working environment. They should be glad that we gave them a chance to earn more money in a month than they could in a year in their own country. Also, we wouldn’t want to actually pay them enough money that they could live in the same neighborhoods and send their mongrel children to school with our own children.

Language
I didn’t originally know that this would be included in the bill. If I had, I would have known right then and there that there is NO WAY IN HELL that we can allow this because we have to maintain the purity of our 5000 year language and its 400 year old script that is the most scientifically logical and greatest invention of the most auspicious king that ever lived. And we certainly can’t have foreigners demanding that they be made aware of their rights in the law in their own languages. That would make it impossible to railroad them into confessing and making sure that the bloated statistics that we feed to the newspapers about foreign crime on the rise are kept accurate. Of course, we must maintain our linguistic superiority at all costs.

Sexual Orientation
Prof. Gill may have neglected to mention a few important points in this regard. This item cannot stand because we certainly wouldn’t want to have to actually accept the fact that there are homosexuals in our society. We must make sure they stay in the closet. After all, if they were allowed to come out of the closet freely how terrible that would be for all people. How could we continue to work side by side with someone knowing that they might be after our ass after working together for 10 years? How would we even be able to enter the bathroom for fear that we might be raped by one of these animals? Of course, the women homosexuals should be protected because of the benefit they provide for the lonely working man’s need for a little girl-on-girl action. Unfortunately, if we allow that then we would also have to reciprocate and that would be disgusting. So we just have to keep it all in the closet.

Medical History
This is related to Sexual Orientation because there is a need to discriminate against those who are HIV positive. We must make sure that they die quickly, and alone and penniless, without taxing our medical system. We must also insure that those who have some history of even the most treatable of mental illness should be kept away from the workplaces. How can we work with peace of mind knowing that the person next to us might be transferring their neurosis to us through some sort of evil mind control?

Educational Status
This one is a little hard to understand. Why put this in there at all. Educational discrimination is the backbone of Korean politics. How else would you get to know the people you need to know unless you went to the same school? Passing this portion of the bill would mean the end of discrimination based on the school you attended and everyone knows that it would be bad for society if we couldn’t make sure that we all worked with people of similar caste.

Criminal Record –
Because regardless of the fact that someone has paid their debt to society, everyone should be able to feel free to make sure that this person returns to exactly the same place in society that they came from. We have to prove our theories of ‘once a thief, always a thief’ by forcing them into such destitution that their only resort is crime and then we can put them away for life.
There is also the problem that when the head of a family commits a crime, his or her family census register shows the crime and even a grandson of a living criminal should be forced to work in only the most menial of jobs, regardless of his skill or education because he must be made to pay for the sins of his patronage.


Finally, if this bill were to pass unaltered, the litigation would be endless. Koreans cannot be expected to just change their system of discrimination and bias that has existed for five thousand years. Korea really doesn’t want to become a global society. It would just be too much work. Anti-Discrimination is not in line with a number of the most basic tenants of Korean Society. For Koreans, it is natural to discriminate and examples of this train of thought are found in daily life. So, why bother to change it.

Note to the hopelessly stupid (and Prof. Gill, just in case he is more confused than I think he is): The previous was intended to be sarcasm.

Hell's Angels Korea Chapter??!!

From the JoongAng:

They may not be as fearsome as America’s legendary Hell’s Angels

Indeed!? But they are still a pain in the petut; These gangs of motorcycles that run through the cities at all hours making a general nuisance of themselves. Since I live in Daegu, I don't see the types of large gangs that this article talks about but I have seen groups that are as large as 30 to 50 motorcycles riding through the streets; sans muffler, and making a helluva racket in a residential area at midnight. The stupidest thing about it all is that the police actually seem afraid of these groups. They are powerless to do anything about them and usually just stand by helplessly and watch or at best take video in hopes of catching a few.
Now, what do you suppose would happen if such a group manifested itself in the U.S.? What would the police do there?
Another question: If they were able to "infiltrate the group" then why couldn't they set up roadblocks along the announced route; why not mobilize the riot police and teach them how to dismount a slow moving motorcycle rider without killing anybody?
I am inviting non-violent (or life-threatening) suggestions for handling the problem.
Here are some of mine (feel free to comment)

1. How about tagging? Use some spray cans of that invisible paint that only shows up under UV light and mass spray the riders. They will think they just got sprayed by water or something..go home and the police will track them overnight with UV lights. Clothes, bikes, helmets, hair, etc would all be covered or at least spotted to positively identify the culprits. Don't forget to remove their licences and impound their motorcycles.

2. Infiltrators notify police of the event and all police offices surrounding the area set up individual roadblocks to individually stop riders (one would assume the group mentality gives many of them their bravado and individually or in smaller groups they would be easier to handle.

3. High Tech Variation on the tagging: Electronically tag the motorcycles with some kind of projectile weapon, track them on GPS to their homes or hideouts. Don't forget to impound their motorcycles and remove their licenses.

Any other suggestions?

Small world story #35 (or 2 degrees of separation)

Regular readers will recall the previous 'small world' story where a fellow I work with was the son of my middle school Industrial Arts teacher in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. This comes close to topping that one:

I recently decided to try and see about attending church on the local military base and was able to procure the phone number for the command chaplain. I made an appointment to meet him on base in his office to discuss the details. Of course, one of the first questions that any two Americans in Korea will start with is some variation on the "where are you from" theme. When I responded with my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee I received a,
"Get the heck out of town!"
To which I replied, "I will not!"
We started a conversation that not only included knowing similar places as one would expect from two people hailing from the same place but as it turns out, knowing many of the same people from the small suburban Knoxville town right down to my across-the-street neighbor and a few familiar classmates. Topped off with having actually been in the same place at the same time (Tragically though, the funeral of a close classmate of mine).
I have had other stories in my life: running into my high school Latin teacher in the Chicago O'Hare airport, several hometown-distant chance run-ins with people who know my father, passing by a high school classmate in the Tokyo airport, just freak meetings that really make you wonder if Milgram didn't have it right with his small world phenomenon (aka six degrees of separation).
I wonder who I'll run into next?

It's a small, wierd world after all

Jodi over at AsiaPages had a wierd story post and invited others to offer their own weird stories. I offered a story there about an encounter with a high ranking monk who showed some very un-monklike behavior. I also invited others to come here and check out some other stories of wierdness in my almost 11 years in Korea.
Here's yet another one not in the realm of Korean wierdness persay, well just call it "Small world story #20"
I was looking for a job in the Daegu area and noticed a job listing on the webpage of a local college. I wanted to know what the conditions were for the job so I decided to peruse the webpage and see if i could contact a foreigner on the faculty. I found one such gentleman and his office phone number. I called him and spoke to him at length about the conditions of the job and decided that it was a good place to work. All during the conversation I had a strange sense of familiarity in the man's voice and I finally figured out what it was. It was his accent. I was sure I knew this guy was from. So, I asked him, "You have an accent that sounds like its from the south, I'm guessing Kentucky or Tennessee."
"Wow! you hit it right on the head. I'm from the Tennessee/Kentucky border area." He said kind of shocked.
"What part?" I inquired.
"Well, I'm from Hopkinsville originally but I lived just across the border in Clarksville for a long time." He replied.
I was not yet suprised by this revelation since there are quite a few soldiers fromt he 101st Airborne which is based on the border between these two towns. "I lived in Hoptown from 2nd to 7th grade."
"really!" he sounded genuinely suprised and the conversation turned to details about wheres and whens and I realized that his family name also sounded familliar. I didn't think anything of it at first because it is fairly common in the South to have one area permeated with local names of people who are anywhere from sisters and cousins to distant relatives. So I had to comment, "(family name) sounds familliar, is it a common name in that area."
"Not really", he replied and we got to talking bit more "my father was a teacher at Hoptown middle school."
Then it hit me. This guy's father was my middle school industrial arts teacher!
We talked some more and realized that since he is much older than me he and I probably don't have any further connections but we had a lot to talk about and hit it off instantly. I got the job and we worked together for 3 years. Last summer, he went back home to care for his father who is in his 80's now. It really is a small world isn't it.